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Books by Tony Mendez

• The Master of Disguise: My Secret Life in the CIA www.themasterofdisguise.com• Argo: How the CIA and Hollywood Pulled Off the Most Audacious Rescue in History, www.argothebook.com• Spy Dust: Two Masters of Disguise Reveal the Tools and Operations That Helped Win the Cold War ALSO: An account of the Argo rescue on the CIA website: A Classic Case of Deception: CIA Goes Hollywood, http://bit.ly/TonyMendezhttp://pleasantvalleystudios.com“Argo” is playing at Cinemark Reno Summit Sierra in Reno, Carson Stadium Cinemas in Carson City and Ironwood Cinema Stadium 8 in Minden. Go to RGJ.com for photographs of Tony Mendez and items from the Argo rescue.

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Antonio “Tony” Mendez led CIA efforts in 1980 to rescue six Americans hiding from Iranian revolutionaries by using a ploy that they were in Tehran to scout locations for a science fiction film “Argo.” The public learned of Mendez’s exploits in the film “Argo,” with Ben Affleck playing him on the screen. Not as well known is that the 72-year-old Mendez’s life included living in a tent just east of what is now Vista Boulevard in Sparks in 1947 and 1948 while his stepfather worked at a quarry.

The family had no running water in the tent, so they bathed every Saturday in the Truckee River — something that prepared him for tough conditions in CIA operations in Laos during the Vietnam war, Mendez wrote in his autobiography, “The Master of Disguise: My Secret Life in the CIA.”

“Taking a sponge-bath from a five-gallon Jerry can that had warmed all day in the tropical sun was a lot better than bathing in the Truckee River in the winter,” Mendez said in his autobiography.

Mendez said his time in Sparks helped shape his character and stayed with him through the rest of his life.

“I learned the ability to stay out of trouble and get things done and work by yourself and keep your eye on the horizon,” he said in a telephone interview from his Rockville, Md., home.

The “Argo” movie tells the story of how the CIA and Canadian officials got six Americans out of Iran following the 1979 overthrow of the shah. Fifty-two Americans were held hostage by revolutionaries in the U.S. embassy. Six others escaped and hid with Canadian officials — at one residence in the movie, at two residences in real life.

Mendez came up with the ploy that would get the six out of the country — the spy term is exfiltrate — by coming up with a story that a film crew had come to Tehran to scout their bazaar for a science fiction movie called “Argo.” The ruse included taking out advertisements in Hollywood trade publications.

Early Nevada ties

Mendez was born in the small Nevada town of Eureka in 1940. His father went to work in neighboring White Pine County at the copper pit at Ruth. In 1943, his father was working as a signal hand on the railroad that carried ore out of the copper pit and was crushed and killed when he was caught between the wall of the mine and a railroad car. He was only 23 years old when he died.

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Mendez’s mother got a job in Eureka editing a newspaper and married again but, when Mendez’s stepfather lost his job, they moved east of Sparks in 1947.

His stepfather worked on a quarry, and they lived on the quarry property, where his stepfather started a house but they never finished it before they moved to Pioche in 1948.

The quarry is roughly in the area west of Brierly Way in Sparks, just north of where Vista Boulevard meets Interstate 80 at the entrance to the valley. The eastern boundary of Sparks at the time was Stanford Way, about 2.5 miles away. Mendez said the family’s tent was closer to the highway, then called U.S. 40, but they were shielded from the highway by a rock outcropping.

“It was very rustic to say the least,” Mendez said.

There was no running water at the tent, so the Truckee River about three-quarters of a mile away had to suffice. Mendez had one older sister, a younger brother and three younger sisters. The family took baths every Saturday, whether it was in a house or in a tent.

“We did our washing down in the river,” Mendez said. “We took our scrub board and played down there. It was kind of an all-purpose river bank.”

What’s the trick to bathing with your family in the Truckee River?

“You didn’t have to worry about washing your clothes because you wore them when you bathed,” Mendez said. “So that way you didn’t have to worry about being modest.”

There was some danger at the Truckee River for a 7-year-old boy.

“The current was strong enough to carry you off if you didn’t know how to swim, so we learned how to swim,” Mendez said.

He remember another incident. The river had boulders 6 to 8 feet tall. He was climbing on a tree above one of the boulders when the branch broke. He started crashing through other branches on his way to smashing into a boulder, grabbing at whatever his hands could hold as he fell.

“I caught the last limb before I hit the boulder,” Mendez said.

No running water also meant no toilet.

“If we had to do our business, we’d walk out into the desert and by the time we left, it was decorated with T.P.,” he said.

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His stepfather began building a house near the tent. He got the foundation built but never got to the walls or roof. Before they moved, Mendez said, his brother was sleeping under the floor of the house.

The family’s refrigerator used a block of ice to keep the food cold. The ice melted and water leaked out, so they had a small trickle of water running across the floor out of the tent.

For an education, they walked about a half mile to the Vista school, which was in the area of what is now Larkin Circle.

Did he have a favorite teacher?

“There was one teacher, so she was our favorite,” he quipped.

The Vista school was a one-room schoolhouse. It had about 10 students at all grade levels, from first grade through high school.

He recalled the students got along fine. No bullies.

“It seemed like we were always into something and having a good time,” Mendez said. “There didn’t seem to be a lot of strife.”

His brother was two years younger so they were tight companions, Mendez said. He remembered they seemed to thrive on making life miserable for their sisters.

He doesn’t remember them getting into much trouble.

“There were a lot of caves to explore and stuff like that you shouldn’t be doing. But we did it,” he said.

One time he took his dog, Wags, with him to explore some mine shafts in the hills east of Sparks. Wags disappeared and wouldn’t come when Mendez called him. He’s not sure what happened, but suspects Wags fell down a mineshaft.

Leading to the CIA

Another important thing for his career in the CIA happened in Sparks. Using a carpenter’s pencil and brown paper bag, he had made primitive cartoons of his family’s trip from Eureka to Sparks and of the progress of building the house. One day, his mother gave him a sketchpad and watercolors to encourage his artistic abilities, the autobiography said.

After moving to Caliente, Mendez and his family eventually moved to Colorado, where he grew up. As an adult, he first worked as plumber, but returned to his passion of art, working as a graphic artist. That didn’t pay the bills, so he answered a newspaper advertisement for a job working for the U.S. Navy as a graphic artist overseas in the mid-1960s, his autobiography said.

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The first clue it was going to be a different kind of job was when the job interview was conducted at a motel room, the book said. He was hired by the CIA, and his artistic skills were put to use as a forger of passports and other documents, among other duties.

When “Argo” was first being developed as a movie, the Tony Mendez part was going to be played by George Clooney. But Affleck got a good response to his movie “The Town” and convinced Warner Brothers he should take the lead role and direct it, Mendez said.

“I would say in general the women are somewhat disappointed it wasn’t Clooney, but they got over it,” Mendez joked.

Mendez ended up working as an adviser on the film and has only nice things to say about Affleck.

“He’s very much a sweetheart,” Mendez said. “He’s got a lot of kind bones in his body. If we made a suggestion, you could see he took it on board and incorporated it around him.”

“She’s even sweeter than he is,” Mendez said. “She’s better looking, of course. Ordinarily, she’s just the everyday, next door kind of girl, but when she dresses up, it’s amazing.”

So Affleck played a real-life spy in “Argo.” Affleck’s long-time partner, Matt Damon, played fictional spy Jason Bourne in three movies. How do they compare?

In real life, CIA spies are not crazed assassins as they are in the movies, Mendez said.

“We always say the difference between us and James Bond is that we sneak in and steal the secrets and nobody knows they’re gone,” Mendez said. “Movie spies are too glamorous and attract attention, as movie stars want to do. Real life spies are pretty dull, by design. ... You look at them and you immediately fall asleep from boredom. That’s the plan, to become the little gray man.”

Mendez made a video with filmmaker Errol Morris called “The Little Grey Man” that described the low-profile attitude spies were supposed to adopt. Mendez thinks Affleck’s portrayal of him on the screen is closer to what real spies do.

Mendez has a scene in “Argo” as an extra, dressing up in 1970s clothes and walking in the background at Dulles Airport.

Mendez reached the equivalent rank of a general in the CIA and retired in 1990 after a 25-year career. He has been painting full time. Plus, he and his wife, Jonna, lecture about the craft of disguises.

His family still has ties to Nevada. His maternal great-grandfather was the first to come to the state, immigrating at age 17 from Italy to Eureka to make high-grade fuel called coke used to melt ore. He moved from Eureka to the Comstock and eventually ended up making major discoveries in Goldfield, but lost his money on other mining ventures.

The bank came to foreclose on either his great-grandfather’s ranch in Duckwater or a mine in Silverton east of Tonopah and the family kept the mine, Mendez said. That’s where the family graveyard is and, when relatives die, their ashes are scattered there.